“Of course it does. But I wouldn’t be here very long if I got fired because I was terrible at managing volunteers. I’ve never managed anyone. Or anything. I’m pretty sure I’d be terrible at it.”
“I wouldn’t let you be terrible at it. If you have...paperwork, you could bring it home, and I’d help you fill it out. I wouldn’t let you fail at it. Darcy, I’d help you,” he said, trying to put his whole heart in his voice.
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I can’t take some job I can only do if you’re coaching me through it.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because, I assume, in this scenario you’ve dreamed up, I’m also living with you. I’ve never heard of Beacon, but I bet I can’t afford to live there on whatever a wildlife rehab volunteer coordinator makes.”
“Okay, yes, that’s true, but that would just make it easier for me to help you until you get settled into the job.”
“And if I don’t settle into the job? If I get fired?”
“Then I’ll help you find a new one.”
“But what I’m saying, Teagan,” she insisted, eyes round and scared, “is what if you and I don’t work out?”
She said that like it was something that might be out of their control. It wasn’t! He couldn’t control when his brain would melt down like a graphite-moderated reactor, but he could commit to her, in whatever terms she wanted. He could do that even if she wouldn’t offer up the same.
Teagan clenched his jaw hard. “You don’t have to worry about it. Youknowme. You know it would never be me who left.”
“I can’t ever know that,” Darcy said, looking down at her feet.
There was tight heat in a band around his throat and behind his eyes. Every word was harder and harder to force out.
“Then tell me what it would take for you to feel safe enough to take this job. It doesn’t have to be this job. Tell me what would make you feel safe enough to stay here with me. If it’s something that can be bought, I’ll buy it for you. If there’s something I can do, I’ll do it for you. If there’s anything you need to hear me say, any promise I can make, I’ll say it to you. Here and now or in front of as many people as you like.”
Darcy’s shoulders heaved, but she didn’t look up. He felt as though he was shouting up at her from a great distance below, somehow sinking deeper.
“I called the tow lot this morning. Your car’s going to auction for tow liens next week. I could buy it for you. So that you could always move out, if you wanted to.” He swallowed again. “Am I getting warmer?”
“I don’t know,” Darcy said, curling and uncurling her hands. “I need to think about it.” She took a step away and turned toward the reptile house, and Teagan was abruptly certain that she’d talk herself out of it entirely if she had a chance to run off. He couldn’t just let her go.
“Do you want to get married?” he blurted out.
“Jesus! Are you asking me?” she cried, spinning back to face him.
“No, I’m saying—is that what it would take? For you to be sure you could do this. That we could do this.”
Her expression was appalled, and her reaction to the idea couldn’t have been a sharper knife in the chest if she’d laughed at him instead.
“And if I said yeah, I’m not sticking around unless you put a ring on my finger?” She had her lips pressed so tightly together they’d turned pale.
There were right and wrong answers to this, he was sure. He wished he knew what she wanted to hear.
“Then—I’d get you one,” he said softly. He thought it probably wasn’t the right answer, but it was true, at least. Darcy gasped like he’d confessed some terrible misdeed.
“Why?” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “Why would you do that? Teagan, you’re miserable, and you’re only getting worse since we got back from Montana. I don’t think I’m helping you at all with your alcohol dependency. I can’tdo anything to help you withyourjob, and your job’s pretty all consuming. Don’t you want to be with someone who makes you happy?”
“It’s not your job to make me happy,” Teagan said, jerking back in surprise. “I’m happywithyou. I love you. You’re that first cup of coffee that gets me out of bed in the morning. You’re the song on my playlist for the drive home. You’re every good thing that I promise myself to get through the day.” He gripped his hair so hard it hurt, just to be able to keep talking. “You’re the best thing in my life—and I mean it. I’ll do anything. Ask me for anything.”
At last something he said had landed. She was taking deep, gulping breaths, eyes wide and shocked, but at least she was considering it.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
“Okay... what?” he was so dizzied by the conversation that he wasn’t sure whether he was engaged or whether she was leaving him.
“Okay, I’ll think about it. About what you said. About the job. And—and everything. Can you go drink some Sprite or something for a while? I just—I need to think about it.”
